BREATHING
by synaesthesia
Summary: Personal prose. Syaoran returns after years of absence.


Personal prose. You'll understand.

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BREATHING - reunion_****_

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He stood there lost like a sheep, those dark eyes begging for forgiveness, understanding, and most importantly, love. Yet the determination and confidence in which he stood, with that careful, methodical, mechanical, left-right-left-right of his footwork, the necessity of precise action and movement drilled in to his form since birth, could have undid him had she not been able to see, to perceive, those lost, lost eyes. But here he was, here he stood, found; here was her missing part, the missing piece that for so long she'd learned to amble along without, finally finding herself strong, finally realizing herself capable, independent. Now she wasn't so sure. 

He started off with an apology. It was quick, nonchalant, sentimental. His lips -- the careful delicate candy of his body -- barely moved at all. He was stone, a rock that she had once been able to place an enormous amount of blind hope on; he had been her religion, he had been God, been the essence of all she did; he had been her only constant.

"You look good."

"So do you."

"Considering," she laughed.

It was formal conversation that hid the informality of his gaze, of her nervous lip-biting, of an ache in each of their hearts, bodies; of the intimate soul that mated long before either of them was born, when she was star dust spinning around his planet debris as it compacted in to the long silent, ever-gazing moon.

He stood only a few feet away. The time, the distance, all those _months_ had finally dissolved between them, finally deteriorated in to the mere inches between; the miles still lingered, the distance was still close, still strangling. He was here, and yet he was not, this Chinese boy with the same features, the same scent, the same build -- but infinitely different. His eyes seemed deeper, higher-slanted; his touch, she imagined, would not mold around her anymore; she could not fit.

She had changed, too, after all. And in changing, she realized this new her, this neo-Sakura, may not be what this neo-Syaoran could ever love.

He took a languid step forward, nearly lazy, uncontrolled, and he straightened himself by her side. A moment passed of uneasy silence; they walked on, careful not to brush their forearms in their rigidly-casual amble to the unknown. The conversation continued, bits and pieces of How was the trip? How was China? What have I missed? All really asking: Have you waited for me? Did you miss me? .. Why did you never come home, why did you never write? The months, the years were _long_, and for the heart, a year contains many minutes, many hours, many lifetimes. She'd loved him countless centuries; her heart beat for both of them now.

The apathy with which they both spoke was broken by sudden pitch changes in each of their voices; they were both crying. The air around them was warm, quickly being replaced by the airy night as the sun, struggling to watch the production, slowly drifted behind the trees, below the horizon.

"I missed you," she said suddenly. "I missed you so much. I thought you were dead."

He murmured a fragmented apology, a two word hearty sentence that spoke of much more, of his love for her, of his loss, of his endurance. Of so much of himself that she hadn't seen, of so much that he still wanted to show her.

"And after all this time. Of not knowing," Sakura turned to face him, her eyes like a jar of green fireflies flashing at such a speed that the exact moment in which their glow dimmed mirrored the exact instant when a swimming tear covered her irises, blocking the light, the luminescence, of her soul. But she still shown so bright, so bright, even without him?.. Without him here?

"After all this time. I can't love you any less.

"If anything, I love you more. I lost you. I lost you in my dreams, in my mind -- but you wouldn't get out of my heart." She sobbed elegantly; the juvenile quality of her speech, or her lips and of her body had faded in that loss, in the wake of a Syaoran who was nothing but air and mystery. What stood before him now was strength, a full-blossomed cherry blossom tree many years old, containing stories and poetry in the thick rings of its trunk; what stood before him now was a girl becoming a woman, the insect emerging full-grown from it's chrysalis, wings like a night sky.

"Thank you," she said miserably, sincerely. "I knew even if you never came home" -- the word a spell, as if all her magic was morphing in to that idea: home, belonging -- with her -- "I wouldn't be able to find anyone that I love like I love you.

And that's all right," she said quietly. "That's all right."

The sun set and the moon, full and grinning, shown out against a twilight sky. She laughed pure and crystalline, the sound never quite forgotten in his mind, now just rediscovered, remembered, and he drew a hand out to her, his palm breaking the distance of China, of loss, of heartbreak and heartache; he touched her for the first time in two years. They both shivered. They both stilled.

Sakura smiled leaning up to tip-toe, her body like delicate velvet and strong like silk in his arms; she hovered against his chin, dangerously close ...

"Welcome home," she said at last.

And kissed him.


End file.
